My Family Story – WWI

‘My Family Story’ is part of the city’s programme to commemorate World War One. This is your chance to be a part of it. How? Bring your special documentary memories to the City Library. With your permission we’ll digitise them and make them available to the public so that you can share your family’s stories with the community. And tell your friends and family too.

“There’s such a lot of interest in local history relating to World War One”, says Maria Shiva, Research Educator. “In addition to the history of the war itself there’s been a lot of enquiry into other aspects, and how the ordinary daily life of New Zealanders was affected by it. Some of the best descriptions of what that was like are contained in personal documents. Many Palmerstonians have items like this associated with members of their family, such as letters, photographs, diaries, military documents and postcards. Because of the personal nature of these items the connection of that history to our time tells a special story in itself. We’re interested not only to see what documents people bring in, but how they came by them, and what their relationship to them is. We’ll scan the material, collect a bit of information to help describe it, and make it available to the public”.

This is a great way to keep the history of the Great War alive, and perhaps make it more special because of the personal connections people are able to make to it.